Demon City Shinjuku: The Complete Edition (34 page)

Thirty feet away from Sayaka, they stopped.

Kyoya settled into a right
hasso
stance, the left foot forward, the sword raised over his right shoulder. Then slowly brought down the tip, aligning it with the mask's face.

The mask appeared utterly unperturbed. It wasn't an act. Even if it was, his ability to perfectly conceal the killer aura emanating from his body was on a par with the very best fighters in the martial arts.

The kind of fighter Kyoya was the least effective against. A weakness, a tell, a way in was simply not evident.

And the unarmed fighting style could be a feint. There was no telling what he had up his sleeve—a laser, a handheld missile. Unleash something like that on him right now and it could well kill him.

No problem. Kyoya could live with that. So to speak. He didn't understand it, but he was okay with fighting and dying here. A little earlier than scheduled, but it wouldn't be a bad way to go.

Just as that thought expressed itself in a slight smile, an agitated vibe roiled out of the masked man's being. The young man's laid-back manner had shattered his icy resolve.

The opening he was waiting for.

With a shout, Kyoya jumped forward, closing the gap between them in a flash. Though the mask managed to duck at the last second, he practically tripped over his own two feet doing so, and couldn't set up an immediate counterattack.

Damn, too slow
. The thought flashed through his mind, but he kept a poker expression and poured strength into his hands, swinging Asura sideways at the mask's midsection. He wasn't pulling his punches. If the blow connected, the guy wouldn't be moving for a month.

He felt a peculiar reverberation down the shaft. Kyoya was thrown backwards in midair. He didn't have time to execute a soft landing, and broke the fall onto the granite floor with his left shoulder. It was wet, probably because of the water.

Ow
.

He kept that reaction bottled up inside too.

“Shit!”

That he shouted out loud. His legs splayed apart at odd angles. He was forced to lean on Asura to stay up.

Rubbing his right hand, the man in the golden mask said, “Had enough?”

He wasn't rubbing very hard. Kyoya hadn't hit him any harder than that. The realization sent a cold chill down his spine that soon transformed to anger. One of his better qualities. But no matter how good, it didn't solve the problem before him.

While still resolved to knock him on his ass, in a corner of his mind, Kyoya contemplated the true nature of the masked man's riposte. He'd sent exactly the same physical impact and mental power invested in the wooden sword back at him.

“Well, do you still want to continue?” the man in the golden mask said scornfully.

Kyoya smiled complacently and said with equal derision, “Hoh. That sure hit the spot.”

“It looks that way, doesn't it?”

“Sure.”

“And why would that be?”

“Guys like you, even given a little leeway, you don't miss a thing. Spot a weakness and you'll go straight at it. Not to mention that you wanted to kill me from the start. The only reason you didn't is because of the way I rang your skull just now.”

“Idiot.”

“Then step up to the plate. I ain't dead yet.”

“Fine.”

The mask's voice was colored with rage. Kyoya's words had no doubt hit the mark. With unsettled steps, he faced off against Kyoya, still leaning on the wooden sword. Kyoya's body sunk lower, carefully folding his otherwise numb limbs beneath him, settling to the floor in a cross-legged position.

Asura shot up with a
whoosh
of air. The mask's legs froze. The tip of the wooden sword swept against the side of his chest.

Rising out of some unknown and bottomless pit of energy, the energy radiating from the body of this enervated high school student immobilized him. When Kyoya should have had no
nen
left to use.

“Bastard.” The first sounds of human pique drifted from the mouth of the mask.

They were both locked in place, each holding the other motionless. Rooted there where they stood, it seemed that an eternity passed.

“Kyoya-san.”

Calling out with a voice like a song, Sayaka ran up to them. The mask had attempted to parry Kyoya's sword with his arm. At the moment of contact, the shock of psychic power burned away the narcotic spell like the morning mist.

The mask backed away. “That is enough. I shall call a nursing robot. No hard feelings.”

Kyoya raised his pale face and winked. “I'll take a rain check, then. Don't pretend to be out.”

“Understood.” With a golden glitter he descended the staircase and vanished out of sight.

“Whoa,” said Kyoya, pitching forward.

Sayaka came up behind him and kept him from falling over. A sweet scent wafted up. He felt her soft breasts pressed against his back.

“Hey, that tickles,” he said. He had a hard time making his tongue work.

“You're freezing cold!” Sayaka exclaimed. “Like ice. When did you go swimming?”

Kyoya tried to smile, but his face was bent into a disheveled grimace. He'd bluffed his way out of that mess, though he wasn't quite sure how. He'd used the last vestiges of his remaining
nen
against the mask, and hadn't the time or the reserves to restore himself to any kind of fighting condition.

Only that he couldn't bear getting whipped by the guy coming at him. Luckily, what he had in him had proved enough.

“I dunno,” he muttered in a hoarse voice.

Sayaka exclaimed, “You don't even know what you did? Your head—”

“Oh, button it,” Kyoya groused, he thought, to himself.

“That's not nice,” Sayaka answered sullenly. Who clearly had heard.

Now Kyoya was the one who buttoned it. He really didn't understand. He indicated with his finger where he wanted to lie down. His head had barely touched the hard stone when he felt it being lifted up and set down on a warm cushion.

He started a bit, the way men do in such situations. Sayaka looked down at him, having made a pillow of her lap. Kyoya averted his eyes from her searching gaze, determined to play the tough guy.

Sayaka smiled at his smoldering awkwardness, remembering with a touch of nostalgia the first time. Racing away in a taxi from Shin-Okubo station to escape a fire-wielding monster, she had lent the exhausted young warrior the use of her lap. That was all she could do. And she wanted more than anything to simply sail off to parts unknown like that.

Reflecting on that rekindled a flame of longing and nostalgia, and Sayaka's cheeks blushed rose red. Kyoya didn't notice. He was like that. They were both like that. A sad little smile creased Sayaka's lips.

“Heave ho,” Kyoya said several minutes later, waking himself up.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” he said, his bluntness born of awkwardness. “How about yourself?” he asked, scratching his head.

“I don't know.”

“You don't know,” echoed the surprised Kyoya, gazing at her pale countenance. He hastily cleared his throat.

He's concerned about me
, Sayaka beamed.

As they strolled along, they discussed what had happened up to now. Kyoya mostly kept quiet and listened. When Sayaka had finished talking, he said, “The culprit is probably whatever it was you drank.”

“Probably.”

“What happened, what you saw in that dream, could you describe it a bit more?”

“That's—um—” She hung her head.

They began to descend the stairway. “I get the idea he lured you out in order to show you what was in that dream. This business with Semiramis, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the vast midnight landscapes—a tool to heighten your awareness of it all. In that light, I know this sounds kinda gross, but it would seem his objective is
you
, Sayaka-chan. Damn, a few more details would sure be useful.”

Kyoya clucked his tongue in frustration.

They stopped halfway down the stairs. Sayaka wasn't coming with. She was standing still three steps above him. Kyoya furrowed his brow. Sayaka was shaking. This young woman who had thrown herself alone into the Demon City night in order to save the world, and had boldly accepted an invitation to this strange palace—she was trembling.

Kyoya ran up to her. “What's the matter?”

Sayaka clung to him for support before he finished asking the question, her warm breasts pressing the cool fabric of his damp shirt against his skin.

“I'm so scared,” she wept.

“What's going on?” Kyoya said, the sense of urgency overshadowing his usual nonchalance.

Sayaka shook her head, sending waves through the cascade of hair around her waist. “I'm remembering. Not everything, but enough. Thousands of people lined up in a wide field and kneeling.”

Her arms tightened around his waist.

“After that, a big shadow—I couldn't make out its form, but I think human—trampling upon those people. If that was all—if that was all—but the person commanding it, the person ordering the deaths of so many people and laughing at the sight, that person—”

Her words dissolved in a cry. Then she screamed, “—was me!”

When the invited guests descended from “Babylon” that evening, Kyoya and Sayaka were among them. They listened without emotion to the effusive exclamations of praise and wonder.

The politicians and businessmen estimated the wealth of the man in the golden mask, and how they could tap into it—

Having viewed dresses created from a completely different perspective, designers once comfortable with traditional patterns mused about monopolizing a “back to the future” movement featuring ancient fashions—

Stars presented with dazzling jewelry now considered this mysterious unknown lord of the manor a celebrity of their own station—

While Kyoya and Sayaka felt only dark clouds closing upon their minds.

Kyoya couldn't avoid the fact that his
nenpo
hadn't approached that of his enemy. Sayaka couldn't shed those bad dreams.

He steamed with anger, wondering what kind of drug the masked man had fed her. Kyoya wanted to search out the golden mask. But considering the funk Sayaka was in, and lingering suspicions that he'd come after her again, he had instead hung out in a corner of the banquet hall and sulked.

He'd mulled over what the enemy was up to, except that admirers of his fighting style kept interrupting. He couldn't get a moment to himself. But perhaps because he'd intervened, the enemy's actions toward Sayaka had been forestalled for the time being.

Android dancers had recreated ancient entertainment. Magic shows took conjuring to another level, playing freely with light and sound. Strolling in the shade of the trees. Boating in the lake. Passing the time.

At length, the lord of the manor had rung down the curtain on the festivities.

At the Japan section of the World Federation Government Information Bureau in Azabu, Yamashina met them in person. After they settled down to talk, Kyoya asked, “How are you doing, Sayaka-chan? Feeling better?”

“Yeah, I'm okay.”

Despite her bright face and voice, she didn't look all that okay. The shock must have been considerable and he was loath to make things any worse, so he didn't delve into details. But Sayaka bucked up and related everything to Section Chief Yamashina, even asking for treatment to help restore her memory. Specialists at the Information Bureau would be making preparations even now.

“It'd help at times like this to have Mephisto on call,” Kyoya sighed.

Perhaps from fending off the attack from the golden mask, his
nen
was taking its own sweet time restoring itself. And even then, he couldn't be certain that he'd have the right kind of spiritual energy on tap to strike back at the monster.

More than that—more than anything—were his concerns about Sayaka.

Sayaka looked at him and asked, “Why Mephisto?”

“I have to think he'd come up with some sort of a solution, for both me and you.”

“You think so?”

“He is a doctor. And he does seem to be made out of different stuff.”

“That is true.” A small smile at last turned up the corners of her mouth.

“Yeah, it's a lot nicer seeing you smile,” said Kyoya, a little verve returning to his voice. “Especially when the person smiling is a babe.”

“Oh, please,” said Sayaka dismissively, but couldn't help blushing.

Kyoya laughed, a bit too loudly. The same free spirit who'd cop a feel and promise the girl a high school experience worth remembering was completely thrown for a loop by this prim and pretty lady.

“But—” said Sayaka, looking down, her voice dying to a whisper. “Doctor Mephisto isn't here.”

“That is true too.”

“Just Kyoya-san.”

“Hmm?” What might be called an ominous presentiment raced through his mind. “However—” he said, stroking his chin with great gravity. That was as far as he got. There was no
however
. Nothing more came to mind.

Sayaka sat herself down on the sofa next to him. There was only room for one more person. Reach out and she could touch him. The distance of a single strand of her hair.

“Um—” she said.

“W-what?” Kyoya burst out. Caught off guard, he stared instead at the ceiling.

“Nothing,” Sayaka said.

She didn't know what came after the “um.” For reasons she couldn't comprehend, when she really wanted to talk to the one person she wanted to talk to more than anybody else,

Sayaka was sixteen. A woman's shadow had begun to touch her comely features, accompanied by that richer, more complex scent. A nature that set her apart from other girls could be ascertained at a glance, along with the instinctual urge to shield her from all the pain and sorrow the world had to offer.

Just as they all knew at a glance that the only child of the World Federation president had an iron will and was no prisoner to vapid sentimentality.